Craft, Words and Waffle by Violet Annie

It’s late at night. You’re hungry. You know you shouldn’t raid the pantry but to hell with diets and the whole “don’t eat after 8pm at night” nonsense (what am I, a gremlin?). Time to check out what snacks are available to us.

What can you do? a.) Forget about the whole thing and go to bed, sad and unsatisfied? b.) Try the fridge instead? c.) Rummage through your handbag to see if there’s a long-forgotten mint or something? d.) Wrench the pantry door open with a knife and vow to put a new door knob on tomorrow? If you answered “all of the above except A”, you’d be correct. Let’s face it, A was never an option.

My house has many features that are, through age or just crappy design, falling off/breaking down/not performing so well. Doorknobs are one example. I’ve replaced several now in different rooms but, for the kitchen, decided to go with something a bit more jazzy. I probably shouldn’t draw attention to my pantry (it’s not like I’m not VERY FAMILIAR with it already!) but I wanted to do this little project and not have to open the door with a knife 🙂

These little wooden doorknobs are currently available at Kmart, in Australia, for $1.00 each. One dollar! I do not want to know where the materials were sourced from at such a price – it would probably hurt my brain. They had different shaped ones too, but I bought the regular round one. I collaged on various scraps of patterned papers and washi tape, then (using a stencil I had made) draw on a heart shape. I then painted the doorknob all over in blue, leaving out the heart-shaped area. Details were added with permanent black pencil, a white paint pen and a bit of stamped text. The whole thing was sealed and varnished and voila! It was done. (It looks a bit “cloudy” in places because I had literally just finished sealing it so nothing had dried before I took the photo). I sanded back the edges slightly too, just to give a bit of extra detail.

So, an easy, inexpensive little decorator project that could be applied to lots of furniture and household items. I’m still thinking I should have stamped “DO NOT ENTER” instead of “NOURISH” on my doorknob, but I will try and have some willpower of my own, instead of expecting inanimate objects to guide me and tell me what to do (or, in this case, what NOT to do) when I get the midnight munchies.